April 24, 2012

Hugh Hefner Declares War on GOP Bedroom Politics

Hugh Hefner is ready for war — not against his former wives or girlfriends, but against conservative politicians thrusting their viewpoints into other people’s bedrooms.

In a rare move, the founder of Playboy magazine picks up his pen and writes an editorial in the May issue of the men’s magazine. The politics website Politico.com notes in his editorial, headlined “The War Against Sex,” Hefner blasts “repressed conservatives … [for] pounding on America’s bedroom door.”

“For months I have watched the rhetoric building,” writes Hefner. “Last October, in an interview with an evangelical blogger, Rick Santorum promised to defund birth control on the grounds that contraception is ‘a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.’

“Ron Paul was no better, believing that the birth control pill did not cause immorality but that immorality creates the problem of wanting to use the pill. Mitt Romney vowed to see a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and to overturn Roe v. Wade.”

He also references Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke, who was lambasted by conservative talk-show show Rush Limbaugh as “a slut” and “a prostitute” after testifying to congress about employers paying for birth control.

The Hef promises not to let down his guard on America’s sexual freedom: “We won’t let that happen. … Welcome to the new sexual revolution.”

But not everyone is eager to have Hefner waving a flag for women’s rights. The women’s business news site, TheJaneDough.com, noted that while it appreciated Hefner’s defense of Fluke and his defense against GOP values, he’s a “notorious girlfriend collector” and “hardly one to preach about women’s rights.”

” Though many argue he had a role in the sexual revolution and provided lots of opportunities for women, he also sends the message that it’s acceptable to juggle multiple significant others at once, all the while objectifying them publicly.”

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